Sunday, January 18, 2009

Joachim Martillo, Founder of Ethnic Ashkenazim Against Zionist Israel (EAAZI), an anti-racist educational network, that engages Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Humanist intellectuals, warned today that an Israel advocacy organization, masquerading as an ecumenical citizens group, ironically calling itself "Citizens for Peace and Tolerance" (CPT), has been disseminating defamatory and unsubstantiated accusations about local Muslim community members, who are raising money for humanitarian aid to Gaza. CPT's last press release dated 1/15/09 may violate Federal Laws (Conspiracy Against Rights, 18 U.S.C.- 241 and the RICO Act).

The inflammatory press release claims that, "For the Muslim American Society to raise funds for a Hamas-linked charity in the heart of Boston is an affront to the traditions of liberty and tolerance on which this city was built."

As a result of the scare-mongering like that of organizations like CPT, many innocent Muslim student activists, clergymen and charity workers have been imprisoned and even tortured. CPT is dedicated to preventing Muslim Americans from enjoying equal rights in the US under the Constitution and uses innuendo and defamation to achieve its goals.

While the Pope, who also sent material aid to Gaza, voiced his concern for “the most vulnerable people in Jesus' birth land, today tragically hit by death, suffering and material damage," CPT's latest press release insinuates with malice that donating money to the besieged population of the Occupied Palestinian Territories is a potentially criminal offense. The subtext of CPT's press release is barely concealed support for genocide through an effort to make sure the maximum number of Palestinians die as a result of the horrifying IDF attack on Gaza.

"The pattern of defamation by Zionist groups such as CPT is not only despicable, but it is also shamelessly clear. They have a very clear goal to marginalize Western Muslims," Martillo said.

CPT, whose founder is Christian Zionist extremist and Boston College professor Dennis Hale, serves as a front organization for The David Project (TDP), particularly in cases where the Jewishness of TDP might create problems. TDP is a widely discredited Jewish supremacist organization specializing in Israel Advocacy training and anti-Islamic incitement. Hale has served as a member of the David Project Advisory Board. He has been President and Director of two other TDP initiatives, the Judeo-Christian Alliance and the Episcopal Jewish Alliance. Hale also serves on the Board of Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East, which is a pro-Israel political lobby and hate-mongering racist organization. Israel Advocacy groups connected to CPT are involved in deliberately creating a hostile environment for peaceful local Muslim citizens and appear to be producing false intelligence for the US government in coordination with various media outlets.

Because both the David Project and Christians for Fair Witness incite hate, their claim to 501(c)(3) tax exempt status is almost certainly fraudulent. While acting as an Israel lobbyist, Hale is probably involved in a wide-ranging conspiracy to commit tax fraud that long ago almost certainly reached criminal proportions.

Israel National News reported in 2006 that "at the last national Episcopal convention, three resolutions hostile to Israel were brought before the resolutions committee - a committee that was chaired by the aforementioned Bishop Shaw, speaker at the "Israel-Apartheid" conference. Thanks to intense lobbying by Prof. Dennis Hale, an Episcopal lay leader who teaches at Boston College, Rev. Dr. Bruce Chilton of Bard College and Sister Ruth Lautt O.P., a Dominican nun from New York, the resolutions were shelved."

However, the New York Sun reports that Hale's genocidal racist viewpoints were not shared by the other Episcopalians:

"Even so, Sister Lautt and Mr. Hale, an associate professor in political science at Boston College tell a disturbing story of their treatment while manning a booth for the group at the convention's exhibition hall. 'We were at first treated like pariahs,' says Hale, who began to reconsider his Episcopalian affiliation given the negative reception he received."

This is not the first time that CPT, a subversive instigator of Islamophobia in Boston, has generated controversy by issuing vaguely worded press releases.

On October 4, 2004, CPT, under the names of Hale and Cohen issued an outrageous press release entitled "New Citizens Group Challenges Mosque Leaders to Honestly Address Radical Islamist Roots of Boston Mosque: Concerned about threat to Boston's tolerant communal tradition." CPT's website, "hatefreeamerica.org" also asserts, without providing any evidence, that "some of the founders of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center have explicitly promoted hatred of Christians, Jews, and Americans."

Martillo pointed to the clear evidence of CPT’s involvement in a criminal conspiracy:

"The discovery process during the 2005 lawsuit of the Islamic Society of Boston against the David Project, the CPT and associated individuals and organizations revealed that CPT was engaged in a wide-ranging conspiracy to prevent Boston area Muslims from exercising their Constitutional rights to assemble freely and to practice their religion. The NE Israeli Consulate, FOX, owned by Rupert Murdoch, and the Boston Herald, owned by Pat Purcell, supplied resources while well-known Islamophobic crackpots like Robert Spencer contributed to the effort."

Spearheading the David Project's campaign to bulldoze the Roxbury mosque was Steven Cohen, the lawyer and real estate developer who was listed as a contact for CPT.

CPT was exposed by the court discovery documents to have collaborated with the David Project, with the blessing of the Israeli Consulate, in devising legal strategies to force the City of Boston to revoke the sale of land out from under the Roxbury Mosque while simultaneously disseminating professional PR fluff pieces to the media full of misleading suspicions and racist innuendos against innocent Muslim community leaders, who properly responded against the David Project, CPT and other conspirators with a lawsuit for defamation.

Howard Cooper, the lawyer for the Islamic Society of Boston stated, "One person with whom the David Project cooperated in this effort, the ISB alleges, was Steve Emerson, the self-styled terrorism ‘expert’ who declared the Oklahoma City bombing to be the work of Middle Eastern terrorists within hours of it occurring. In the Muslim community, and elsewhere, Mr. Emerson is regarded as a person who has made a living attacking Muslims."

"There is grave concern that in every case without exception where a Muslim activist, clergyman or charity founder has been imprisoned based on ‘secret evidence’ or ‘security concerns,’ the ‘evidence’ turns out to be nothing more than empty insinuations that are disseminated by CPT associates such as Steven Emerson or Robert Spencer," Martillo added.

The CPT is recipient of grants from the right wing Bradley, Olin, and Earhart Foundations. These three organizations are heavily enmeshed in Neoconservative and Islamophobic mobilization and subversion. CPT regularly collaborates with other Zionist organizations to create hate campaigns against local Muslim and Arab community members as well as against charities serving victims of war. The ongoing pro-Israel campaign to prevent Muslim Americans from exercising their Constitutional rights constitutes a severe violation of civil rights law.

CPT has explicitly and continuously subjected Boston's Muslim community to vacuous, racist, malicious accusations in the media, casting doubt upon local Muslims' "connections" to some of the most highly regarded and prestigious organizations in the world like

the Islamic Development Bank, which has facilitated the investment of tens of millions of dollars in Boston, and

Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), which has fed and sheltered war victims in Gaza and throughout the world.

IRW provided humanitarian relief to fellow Americans during the Katrina disaster. IRW came to Boston last spring and raised tens of thousands of dollars to dig wells and found schools in Darfur. Islamic Relief is a 5-star charity that works directly with the UN.

Ethnic Ashkenazim Against Zionist Israel first raised concerns about Citizens for Peace and Tolerance in 2005, predicting that the Zionist organization's coordinated media defamation campaign against the Muslims of Roxbury would result in an economic downslide for the City of Boston by making it difficult for Arab and Muslim investors to work with the local and state government to revitalize the Massachusetts and national economy. The collapse of the world finance system is almost solely attributable to the US-Israel Alliance, which has already cost Americans at least $6-8 trillion dollars.

"It gives us no pleasure to be proven correct in this matter," said Martillo.